Dear Friends;

I hope that you will enjoy the following Parsha summary followed by a Dvar Torah;

” Parsha in a Nutshell “

The people of Israel are told to each contribute exactly half a shekel of silver to the Sanctuary. Instructions are also given regarding the making of the Sanctuary’s water-basin, anointing oil and incense. The people are once again commanded to keep the Shabbat.

When Moses does not return when expected from Mount Sinai, the people make a Golden Calf and worship it. G-d proposes to destroy the sinful nation, but Moses intercedes on their behalf. Moses descends from the mountain carrying the Tablets of stones engraved with the Ten Commandments. Seeing the people dancing around their idol, he breaks the Tablets, destroys the Golden Calf and has the primary culprits put to death. He then returns to G-d to say: “If You do not forgive them, blot me out from the book that You have written.” G-d forgives, but says that the effect of their sin will be felt for many generations. .

Moses prepares a new set of tablets and once more ascends the mountain, where G-d reinscribes the ten commandments on these Second Tablets. On the mountain Moses is also granted a vision of G-d’s glory! So radiant is Moses’ face upon his return, that he must cover it with a veil, which he removes only to speak with G-d and to teach His laws to the people.

” Dvar Torah “

“Don’t follow the crowd; let the crowd follow you.” — is a quote from Margaret Thatcher, one of the best leaders the Great Britain ever had!

Leadership is a very difficult task. Leaders can fail for many different reasons. One of the reasons can be because a leader may simply lack the courage to lead. Sometimes leaders have to oppose the crowd. They have to say No when everyone else is crying Yes. That can be terrifying. Crowds have a will and momentum of their own. To say No may be to put your career, even your life, in danger. That is when courage is needed, and not showing it can constitute a leadership failure of the worst kind.

In this week’s Parsha, unfortunately, leadership failure was the fate of Aaron HaKohen. We read about the sad story of the Golden Calf. And this is how the Torah describes it  to us: When the people saw that Moses was taking too long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, ‘Come, make us a God who will go before us. As for this man Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’ Aaron answered them, ‘Take off the gold earrings that your wives and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.’ So all the women took off their earrings and the men brought them to Aaron. He took it from their hands, threw it into a furnace and fashioned it into a molten calf. Then they said, ‘This is your God, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.

G‑d became angry. Moses pleaded with Him to spare the people. He then descended the mountain, saw what had happened, smashed the tablets of stones he had brought down with him, burned the idol, ground it to powder, mixed it with water and made the Israelites drink it. Then he turned to Aaron his brother and said, “What have you done?!”

“Do not be angry, my lord,” Aaron answered. “You know how inclined these people are to evil. They said to me, ‘Make us a God who will go before us. As for this man Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’ So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold bring to me.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”

Aaron blamed the people. It was they who made the illegitimate request. He denied responsibility for making the calf. It just happened. “I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!” This is the same kind of denial of responsibility we recall from the story of Adam and Eve. The man says, “It was the woman.” The woman says, “It was the serpent.” It happened. It wasn’t me. I was the victim not the criminal! Not accepting responsibilities is a moral failure on it’s own!

The odd thing is that Aaron was not immediately punished. It seems that he was never punished for it at all.  According to the Torah he was condemned for another sin altogether when, years later, he and Moses hit the rock instead of speaking to it.

It seems that tradition dealt kindly with Aaron. He is portrayed as a man of peace. He was given the position of the highest Priest. But the question that bothers me is why did Hashem deal so kindly with Aaron? If he was at fault, why didn’t he get punished? The people who participated in worshiping the Golden Calf, they all died. Aaron was the one who made the calf….. why did Hashem let him off the hook?!

Once again, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks gives an interesting answer. He says it’s true that Aaron failed as a leader, but leadership was not his job. The fact that Aaron was not a leader in the same mold as Moses does not mean that he was a failure. It means that he was made for a different kind of role. Yes, Moses might have smashed the tablets and grinded the calf to dust, but that’s Moses character, not Aaron’s! Moses and Aaron were different types. Aaron failed when he was called on to be a Moses, but he became a great person in his own right in a different capacity. And Hashem did understand that….. Aaron was not made to be a leader; he was made to be a peacemaker!  A peacemaker cannot shout and oppose the crowd. A peacemaker cannot say to someone, “I’m right — You are wrong”! These are jobs for a leader! Yes, there are times when you need someone with the courage to stand against the crowd, others when you need a peacemaker. Aaron and Moses complemented one another and both of them were successful in their own fields.

Yes my friends, the Torah is teaching us a great lesson here. If you fail at a job, it does not make you a failure! It just means that you still haven’t found the field that you are good at! Some of us are made to be great leaders, some of us are made to be Torah scholars, some are made to be doctors, some are made to be businessmen, some are made to be teachers, some of us are made for sports and some are made to be writers. If we are not succeeding in a field, it just means that we are not in the right field that we are made for. We should continue to search until we find the right field that we are good at.

The Torah does not associate the sin of the Golden Calf with Aaron, because he doesn’t want us to remember Aaron as a failed leader, since leadership was not his job. He was made for priesthood and bringing peace between the people, which he did his job at its best. And that’s how we should remember Aaron — as the greatest Priest of all times…

Shabbat Shalom & Regards;

Martin